There is something called the principle of sufficient reason: everything happens for a reason. I believe that everything happens for a reason because inductively, that has been the case every time. It would be odd for some things to happen for no reason while most things do. However, if everything happened for a reason, it would lead to infinite regress. So I think the universe and its initial conditions “started” for no reason.
What is this called? Am I still following the PSR? Thanks
See the following links on Hume’s problem and Kant’s antinomies of pure reason.
We here on PhilSE are quite familiar with seeing the principle of sufficient reason. WP has an article on it. So too does the SEP! From WP:
The principle of sufficient reason states that everything must have a reason or a cause. The principle was articulated and made prominent by Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz, with many antecedents, and was further used and developed by Arthur Schopenhauer and Sir William Hamilton, 9th Baronet.
You say:
if everything happened for a reason, it would lead to infinite regress. So I think the universe and its initial conditions “started” for no reason... What is this called? Am I still following the PSR?
So, in epistemology, there's something called the Münchausen Trilemma:
The Münchhausen trilemma is that there are only three ways of completing a proof:
- The circular argument, in which the proof of some proposition presupposes the truth of that very proposition
- The regressive argument, in which each proof requires a further proof, ad infinitum
- The dogmatic argument, which rests on accepted precepts which are merely asserted rather than defended
What you are doing is putting forth a foundationalist claim. From the SEP:
The foundationalist’s thesis in short is that (a) there are some “basic” or “foundational” beliefs that have a positive epistemic status—e.g., they count as justified or as knowledge—without depending on any other beliefs for this status, and (b) any other beliefs with a positive epistemic status must depend, ultimately, on foundational beliefs for this status.
In your case, you are simply asserting that the origin of the universe needs no justification or proof, and seem to be making a metaphysical argument that infinite regress is untenable, so are essentially declaring by fiat an origin of the universe. This is your privilege as a thinker, and for an epistemologist, especially one with a fallibilist view (IEP), there are positive arguments for doing so by curtailing the need for evidence according to a theory of evidentialism.
Phenomenological existence builds on the ideas of Descartes and Kant. To a realist it probably seems like a solipsistic phantasy.
Nevertheless . . .
For objective things, according to Kant's note 36 B287 :
"[existence] is the conjunction of the [notional] thing with perception."
So Descartes' doubting cogito might first form the notion of 'the universe', then he opens his eyes, and for him, if perception reasonably corresponds with notion, the existence of the universe is established.
So the existence of the universe is caused by the conjunction of notion and perception.
But what about the being of the cogito?
"Being" cannot be derived from higher concepts by definition, nor can it be presented through lower ones. ... We can infer only that 'Being' cannot have the character of an entity. (Heidegger, GA 2, H. 4)
Furthermore, in The Principle of Reason (p. 40) Heidegger sets the pitch of PSR in this way:
"Nihil est sine ratione." "Nothing is without reason." In the affirmative form this means: every being (as a being) has a reason.
However, 'Being'—existence—is not a being, it is not an entity.
However, if everything happened for a reason, it would lead to infinite regress. So I think the universe and its initial conditions “started” for no reason.
As some of you here on this platform are probably well aware, this problem has not only been addressed in Western philosophy in modern times. In fact, Buddhism, 2500 years ago, had to provide an answer to that very same question without falling back on an Entity as a First Cause — since, by its own tenets, Buddhism rejects the concept of a Creator God (mostly because of all the inconsistencies that follow from that assumption).
However, the idea that "something" is created out of "nothing", especially "nothing... without reason or cause" — i.e., a form of nihilism — is even more aggressively rejected by Buddhism :) Quoting one of my own teachers:
Existentialism [the notion that everything has a physical existence] is stupid, but nihilism [the notion that nothing really exists] is even more stupid.
(Note that in classic Buddhist logic, 'existentialism' and 'nihilism' are formulated slightly differently than on the Western philosophy).
So, how does Buddhism — the Middle Way, neither existentialist nor nihilist — solve the problem? How did the universe start without a First Cause, and how could such a huge exception to the rule that 'effects follow causes/conditions' be integrated in a consistent, logic framework?
As it happens, the problem here is that there is a start of the universe (and its initial conditions). Why do we assume that? Well, in contemporary terms, we could argue that the existing Big Bang theory has a very well-established reasoning (using the scientific method) around the notion that what we call the observable universe did have a start (time = 0). Not only we can establish the 'starting time' of the universe within a reasonable margin (nanoseconds or so), but all observations made in the past century just contribute to further 'proof' that this is, in fact, the most probable explanation (using Occam's Razor).
The Big Bang theory, very cleverly, does not say what happens on time < 0, i.e., what were the conditions before the Big Bang, from a scientific perspective? The point, of course, is to try to explain what caused the Big Bang. But such a question cannot be answered by the theory itself, since it postulates the existence of time before the Big Bang, which we cannot measure, directly or indirectly, on the observable universe. As such, we cannot make any scientific claims on what predates the Big Bang, or even if such a question makes any sense.
There are scientific theories attempting some plausible explanations, the most famous of which being superstring theory (of which there are many, but it can be proven that they are all a description of the same thing, just using different math). Superstring theory is one of those things that was first formulated in the 1960s and its popularity ebbs and flows; it has an extraordinary explanatory power, but, alas, so far, there are no physical experiments that we can use to prove or disprove the theory, and, as such, it lies beyond the scope of what is 'mainstream science' — it's 'fringe science', which, however, remains credible enough to attract researchers to further contribute to the theory, until, perhaps, someday someone works out an empirical experiment which can be, indeed, put to the test (work is under progress!... just don't expect results 'soon').
But anyway — this was just to raise attention that even in Western thought there are thinkers postulating alternative concepts of the 'universe' where the question of 'what started this universe' doesn't make sense (or is not really worth asking). We're just not there yet.
Buddhism often brushes with science, but it's not meant to be a scientific theory — even if it uses tools similar to the scientific method to postulate some concepts and ideas. For Buddhism, it's irrelevant on which nanosecond this universe started, and how hot it was, or how many distinct forces were already present, or where exactly did the Dark Matter go. None of that is important for Buddhism. However, explaining the existence or absence of a First Cause — or, conversely, how to avoid infinite regress — is within the scope of Buddhism philosophy and logic, and, considering that it appeared in an area of the globe where almost every other philosophy established a First Cause — be it a Creator God, anthropomorphic or not, or be it something else (i.e., non-conscious, similar to Espinoza's concept of 'God') — if Buddhism wanted to thrive as a valid 'theory', it had to provide solid argumentation to sustain its tenets.
And their explanation is conceptually very simple — they simply do not assume that the universe has a start, just because it seems that it has a "beginning" (part of what is usually called 'Buddhist meditation' is a rigorous training in looking at things as they are, not as they seem to be). For Buddhists, there is a Big Bang for this universe, and there will probably be a Big End (whatever it might be) as well. But that's not the end of the story. All the causes and conditions created on this universe will ultimately lead to the creation of the next — precisely as the causes and conditions for the creation of this universe were allegedly created on a previous universe.
Note that in Buddhism there is no implication of a sequential succession of universes, temporarily aligned one after the other; instead, the relationship is merely causal, but not necessarily temporal; also, there is no assumption made about how each 'universe' looks like; if one universe can be the cause of more than one new universes, and vice-versa; or if all universes, somehow, have common characteristics. The only characteristic that all these universes have is that they are inhabited by what Buddhists call 'sentient beings'.
You might argue (as many did in the past 25 centuries!) that such a world-view doesn't really explain anything. And I would probably agree with you: as said, Buddhism is not really worried about how those explanations can be scientifically formulated. For instance, Buddhism is very open-minded about what exactly is a "causal relationship" and how it is physically manifested (if at all!) — contrast that with the Standard Model in Western physics, where 'causality' is often defined via 'exchange of particles carrying forces' (except, well, when they don't; thus, quantum mechanics allow for acausal phenomena — something which Buddhism rejects). In other words, in Western systems of thought, things like 'causality', 'conditions', 'temporality', etc. are somehow not merely purely abstract concepts, but, at the very least, they need to be able to be put to the test — either via logic or empirical evidence.
Buddhism is slightly more lenient in that regard. Oh, sure, logic — even formal logic — is important. But there is also a question of accepting one's lack of knowledge regarding minute details, if the overall conceptual framework is sound. Thus, from the perspective of a Buddhist, if you explain to them what assumptions superstring theory works on, and show how this theory is able to explain how universes are created and destroyed, or what happens at time < 0 (from the perspective of our time's universe), that would be more than enough for the Buddhist master. They would just smile and nod and completely accept the theory as 'true' under Buddhist logic; it not only is consistent with Buddhist thought, but it goes a bit deeper in explaining some of the details of how things actually work. This is one (of the many) reason(s) for the Dalai Lama being so deeply interested and fascinated by contemporary physics and cosmology — because it shows, to a Buddhist, how their assumptions about the universe, from the very microscopic scale to the cosmological magnitude, are being formally developed by Western science into mathematically precise formulas and equations which can be empirically tested in a lab environment. For those open-minded Buddhists (because of course we cannot generalise the claim that all of them agree with this vision of the universe), Western-inspired science is a mathematical formulation of what they had been arguing all along for centuries.
A side note: As said, Buddhism, by definition, is a non-theistic religion/philosophy/way of life/science of the mind (pick one), in the sense that it rejects the notion of a First Cause which has some sort of being (in the sense described by Pascal, on @Chris Degnen's comment above). Instead, it follows the concept of interdependent origination, which I'll refrain from fully explaining here, since I'm not even a qualified teacher to do so. However, this doesn't mean that Buddhism shrugs away the existence of so-called "gods" in other religions. What they assert is something rather curious. When a new "universe" comes into existence, sentient beings appear, due to the afore-mentioned sequence of causes and conditions. But they may not appear all at the same time — that would be an astonishing coincidence. Instead, Buddhist scholars postulate that some sentient beings come into existence according to their causation chain, which might be "longer" or "shorter", so to speak, and therefore causing them to originate at different moments in time. Putting that into perspective, Buddhists conclude that, once a universe comes into existence (we Westerners would call that event the Big Bang), sooner or later the first sentient being will appear, in whatever form they might present themselves. That "first" sentient being will look around themselves and, slowly, watch how things — galaxies, stars, planets — emerge as if out of nothing, including other sentient beings, which start to populate the universe. This "first" being will then say, "oh, before I came into existence there was nothing; now, all these beings are suddenly appearing; since there was no one to create them before me, I conclude that I must have created them (and the universe) myself. So, in a sense, these sentient beings are my children and my purpose is to love and help them with their troubles."
While such a story is clearly a form of paternalism, it shows that so-called "first beings" who are "creators of the universe" are, in fact, as deluded as anyone else. However, the scholars say, this is neither the "fault" of the deity (it is subject to the same issues that all sentient beings is, including, of course, self-delusion, and the lack of knowledge about how things really are), nor of the other sentient beings who, all in good faith, revere the First Being as their creator and saviour; it's just that both gods/deities as well as human beings lack the ability to see things as they really are.
Therefore, humans, by meeting a being with vastly superior powers, and who claims to be the Creator of the Universe, 'naturally' manifest their respect to such an entity, who, in turn, also derives some satisfaction from those manifestations of respect (e.g., attending religious services, doing good according to some established rules, and so forth).
Buddhists therefore also allege that they figured out a way around the problem of Evil ("if the Creator of the Universe is infinitely compassive, and there is no other entity with such power, how can this deity allow humans to suffer so much?") as well as the 'necessity' of deities requiring some form of 'tribute' (from more primitive blood offerings to more modern forms of lighting candles or similar things). The entity that calls itself "Creator of the Universe" may, indeed, be all-powerful (compared to us puny humans), but it is bound to the same cycle of suffering that humans, animals, sentient beings in general, are going through. Thus, such deities may display emotions such as humans have — being jealous of 'other gods'; responding to flattery; getting irate when things are not working according to plan (whatever the plan may be, since humans might not be able to have any idea of that). Deities will smite the infidels and raise the faithful to a blissful heaven, all depending on how each behaves; and competing deities, with possibly opposite goals, will condemn the other deities' followers to their Hell, unless, of course, they repent and start following the One True God.
For Buddhists, the display of emotions such as pettiness; jealousy and envy; but also happiness when things are working out, or basking in the soft glow of flattery — all of those are 'normal' for a sentient being to exhibit. Indeed, we all — these gods and semigods, angels, devils, but also all sorts of intelligent beings, the domesticated animals that live with humans, the feral ones that don't, the insects on the ground... all these exhibit such emotions, to one degree or another. It's easier for us, humans, to recognise such emotions on our own pets — we soon figure out when they're angry, or hungry, or ill, or very, very excited and happy. It's harder to see such emotions being displayed by an ant — but everyone has surely noticed that ants move with intention, attracted by food, and avoiding things that cause them pain (like humans trying to kill them). While it's impossible to know how exactly pain and joy are "experienced" by an ant, they must certainly feel that through their own neurochemical mechanisms, and they also have, with a similar certainty, a degree of volition, in trying to do pleasant things and avoiding the unpleasant ones.
Gods and ants, thus, share the same emotions that humans do, and Buddhists therefore do not dismiss the existence of 'gods' directly. They might exist in some way or another — Buddhists cannot tell. But by their actions, Buddhists can easily say that such deities are merely intelligent sentient beings, exhibiting the same emotions, and living to avoid the unpleasant things, while desperately reaching out for the pleasant ones. Therefore, such beings — from ants to self-named "Creator Gods" cannot possibly be the ultimate First Cause. But at the same time, they cannot be either the root of all Good, or the root of all Evil. If they were, all beings would be either 100% Good or 100% Evil, and reflect the purity of such qualities. In practice, that's hardly the case, and it's all a question of a very subjective point of view.
Indeed, paraphrasing Espinoza, if there is a First Cause (and Espinoza argues that there is), which has all the qualities we recognize in It — infinite loving-kindness, infinite compassion, omnipresent, all-powerful, and so forth — then (he argues logically) such entity cannot be sentient. Espinoza's God is, for him and his followers, a First Cause, but it's not the kind of god described on the Bible. It cannot interact with humans in that way; it has no 'plan' for humankind, since it's unable to plan; it didn't create the world with Good and Evil things (e.g., nice views and plants we can eat — as well as terrible animals that can hurt and eat us — or plagues, earthquakes and climate change...), It just created it (or was created by it), without being aware of what It did.
And, Espinoza argues, there is a 'proof' of the existence of a God such as that, because we humans, in our deep essence, have the same essence as this God — otherwise, we wouldn't be able to recognise what is good, what is evil, what are emotions, etc. and of forth. If those characteristics are manifested in this Ultimate Being in its infinite form, then we humans — "created after Its image" — share some of those characteristics and qualities. And based on all the above — and several hundreds of logical lemmas, proven by Espinoza — Espinoza proposed a way of life according to this concept. Obviously, it wouldn't be a way of life "to please a God" since Espinoza's God is unable to get "pleased" (but neither can It get angry with us — it doesn't have conscience or awareness of anything). Rather, it's more of a way of life "to please all others" (this is put in a very simplistic way, of course), recognising that each and every one of us, in a sense, shares some of those qualities that we attribute to the God, and we recognise those in other human beings because we all share that little bit of God's essence.
No wonder that Espinoza got excommunicated by both the Jewish and the Christian communities in what was by then the most liberal country in Europe, Flanders. And Jews technically don't even have the concept of excommunication!
That said, if Espinoza ever had the opportunity of meeting a Buddhist teacher, they would find a lot of common ground. They might have to use a different word for what Espinoza calls 'God', though.
Anyway, my apologies for the long and not really very well-structured answer. This was just a very cursory overview on how other philosophies, namely Buddhism, have dealt with the issue of 'First Causes'. This came essentially from the realisation that you cannot simultaneously postulate the existence of a 'First Cause', and reify it, attributing it with some form of sentience — because that immediately enters into contradictions. It also solves the problem of the Epicurean paradox:
- If a god knows everything and has unlimited power, then they have knowledge of all evil and have the power to put an end to it. But if they do not end it, they are not completely benevolent.
- If a god has unlimited power and is completely good, then they have the power to extinguish evil and want to extinguish it. But if they do not do it, their knowledge of evil is limited, so they are not all-knowing.
- If a god is all-knowing and totally good, then they know of all the evil that exists and wants to change it. But if they do not, which must be because they are not capable of changing it, so they are not omnipotent.
Or as ChatGPT puts it:
Of course, it's assumed in the citations above that this "God" is equated with the First Cause/Creator of the Universe. If such an entity exists, it cannot have all three attributes simultaneously. It's like the old poster on a sales department saying: "Fast, Cheap, Good — Pick two!"
Espinoza tends to be happy with something that has all those attributes (which we recognise as having 'existence', even if in a purely utilitarian way) but has no conscience nor volition — it is non-sentient, therefore avoiding the trilemma. God can be all-powerful, but it cannot do anything with such power, because it is unable to use it for any purpose — it lacks conscience even of the power It has. It can also be all-knowing, but all that wisdom is useless, since it cannot be used for anything — it's just wisdom with the potential of usefulness, but which cannot be directly used by Espinoza's God. And, finally, while It is all-good — omnibenevolent, infinitely compassionate and with infinite loving-kindness — It cannot even apply such goodness either to the world, or to humans, because It lacks the awareness that such things exist, and therefore cannot do anything.
Nevertheless — so argues Espinoza — we humans are sentient and conscious, and we can recognise these qualities, both in ourselves and in others, therefore we — and not God! — can actively interfere in people's lives (starting with ourselves) in order to make the world a place free of Evil.
(Buddhists have come to a similar conclusion, but their line of argumentation is both simpler and much, much more deeper; no wonder, since Espinoza didn't create a large fellowship of followers who could have debated his principles and logic over the years — while Buddhism has been discussing this for twenty five centuries among tens (if not hundreds) of thousands of highly skilled masters in the art of logic. The comparison, therefore, is not fair!)
I just finish off by saying that none of the above is ultimately 'set in stone' — if it were, we wouldn't be discussing it anymore! This issue obviously pops up on all religions, sooner or later; and the more it gets discussed, the more complicated the explanations become, since the First Cause tends to be at the root of all religions and philosophies :)
It's also rather complex to choose a specific view where simultaneously there is free will (i.e., sentient beings have a choice which will affect the future) and a First Cause for the Universe (because it would imply determinism — one cause, one universe). The contradictions are inevitable, and it requires some effort to avoid them. The simplest way, of course, is just setting up some dogmas or axioms that are taken for granted, like you suggested: If we postulate that the universe does not require a reason to exist, then we immediately avoid the "infinite regression" dilemma, while simultaneously allowing for effects to follow causes, and therefore admit free will as being both possible and plausible (to explain that all our actions have consequences).
But by the same argument, without a First Cause, and without a certain degree of determinism (i.e., the universe exists — or was created — for at least some reason, and that's why we observe a certain order in it), it's harder to avoid the opposite problem, that of nihilism — things 'just happen' randomly, without any reason whatsoever, and we (humans) are powerless to prevent them to happen, anyway. Nihilism unfortunately also means that none of our actions are guaranteed to have consequences — they might, or they might not, it's impossible to predict (by definition). It may also mean that things happen spontaneously, with no reason at all (e.g. the universe 'just happened', there is no reason, no purpose, and no goal for its existence).
Now clearly our own experience is not aligned with the two extremes. There is an order in the universe which we can observe, yes, and measure, and count, and even predict how things will look like in the future based on the observations we make today, so long as we recognise and understand which causes produce which effects. But our role in this universe is not merely to be passive observers; indeed, we can interfere, change the existing order, sometimes even revert it (such as causing mass extinction of the Mammoths or the Sabre-Toothed Tiger, both of which would have continued to exist for millions of years if left undisturbed by homo sapiens), or to destroy it completely (e.g., climate change, which can potentially terminate all life on Earth — if nuclear war doesn't do the job first — we humans are that powerful!).
Therefore, whatever the philosophy assumes and says, it needs to deal with the two extremes, since both correspond to the human experience of the universe. There is Order, and there are some reasons for that Order to exist. There is Chaos, and, again, we can identify some of the reasons that create Chaos, or Disorder. We — human beings, fully sentient and having free will — can opt for both: we can actively bring Order out of Chaos, or (much more easily, unfortunately) create Chaos out of Order. While at a limited scale (such as a household, or a small tribal village) such power can be easily seen as being caused by individual humans — and nothing else! — the larger the scale, the more complex the system is, and the harder it is to figure out exactly how everything fits together. Indeed, it can be argued that our human brains are wired to be able to reason about causes merely at what used to be the "human scale" — the tribe, or clan, composed of a few dozens of individuals, and their immediate surroundings. But we puny humans are trying to solve problems at the cosmic scale; and although arguably in the not-so-distant past the concept of affecting a whole planet was deemed (dogmatically so!) to be impossible for humans (neither individual ones, nor even a collective), we now have the ability to do so (are doing so). We haven't blown up this Earth yet, but we could if we wanted to. This very clearly demonstrates how far our free will can take us; and if we engage in a final thermonuclear war, whoever survives it (if any!) will certainly know for sure that the Earth didn't get "spontaneously" destroyed, but rather as a consequence of the actions taken by sentient beings.
At this stage in human development, we might be able to destroy planets, but we cannot — yet — create universes. However, we can actually think on ways to do so — within certain parameters, it might be conceivable that one day (not very far in the future, when seen at the cosmological scale) we might be able to "start" universes by creating singularities which would have micro-bangs (and not Big Bangs!) at the infinitesimal scale, but which would resemble very much a 'universe' with its apparent order. We might have the physics for that, just not (yet) the amount of power required to "start" such a nano-universe. Nevertheless, it's not something which is pure fantasy any longer — we can postulate, with some degree of accuracy, what would be involved in that endeavour. It's just that it's insanely expensive to do so now — but that might not be the case any longer, perhaps in a century or so.
When that happens, we will be the First Cause of such a nano-universe. We will be able to select specific parameters — our choice will be free! — which, in turn, will produce different universes, described by Einstein's general relativity equations. Such universes will have a "purpose", a "plan" to be "created" — namely, some physics nerds will want to experiment and see what happens next. And once we tackle the ability to create nano-universes, obviously, because humans are both curious and ambitious, we will want to create them larger and larger, enduring for a long time (from nanoseconds to seconds, to minutes, perhaps to hours... and beyond!), and being more and more complex.
Indeed, it might be argued that we're already in such a universe :)
And then I guess that all of this discussion around the First Cause will essentially be moot.
